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‘Castle’ Season 7 Episode 18 Recap: “At Close Range”

This week’s Castle episode was a Kevin Ryan-centric episode. I am not a fan of episodes being focused on the supporting cast. The supporting cast should support the leads.

Of all the supporting cast-centric episodes in Castle’s history this one at least didn’t forget the title character, Castle, and Beckett in the episode. There was a decent effort to weave Castle and Beckett in the episode, as well as Esposito. The episode centered around Ryan’s second job working security with his brother-in-law. The two are charged with working security for a clean water charity event and watching over a politician with aspirations for the White House.

During the event, the woman, Carolina Decker, who is running the event, and the politician who Ryan and his brother-in-law are charged with watching over are shot. Carolyn Decker dies turning the case into a homicide and bringing Castle, Beckett and Esposito into the fold.

There are hints of conspiracy, which makes Castle happy, and even a wrong man being charged with the murder. There have been a lot of wrongful arrests as of late. Has anyone noticed?

The case also ties in Ryan’s brother-in-law which devastates Ryan. His brother-in-law wasn’t the killer but he had been doing some back dealings with his security work selling passes to get into events – which allowed the political activist who was at first believed to be the murderer into the event.

In the end, it really wasn’t a shock who was the murderer. Castle and Beckett first believe it’s Lopez’s wife since the politician was having an affair with Decker. However she isn’t the killer, as their marriage was a business arrangement – she was having an affair of her own with her female lover.

It comes of little shock that the murderer is Lopez’s assistant. She killed Decker because she was telling Lopez to get rid of his assistant – she was bringing him down when he was on the rise.

There was more foreshadowing of Beckett’s future. A highly placed politician shocked both Castle and Beckett when he told them he was glad Beckett was on the case because her name has come up in high places. Also, at the end of the episode Castle finds a tutorial book for taking the Captain’s exam and Beckett admits she is studying and plans to take the test to see where it leads.

Again, as speculated before, is Beckett about to imitate her literary counterpart Nikki Heat and eventually become Captain of her own precinct? A bonus observation was the part at the beginning of the episode when Ryan and Esposito talked Castle into sitting in on a three hour training seminar with them and Beckett.